Chapter 6
Finish in the Marianas

By any rational standard, the most
devastating cost of war is the lives of
the men it kills and maims. In these
terms, the price of Guam came high.
In 21 days of battle Marine units of
the Southern Troops and Landing
Force lost 1,190 men killed and 377 died
of wounds and suffered 5,308 wounded
in action; the 77th Infantry Division
casualties were 177 men killed and 662
wounded.1
In the same period, 10,971
Japanese bodies were counted.2
Sealed
in caves and bunkers by shellfire and
demolitions lay hundreds more of the
enemy dead.

Perhaps as many as 10,000 Japanese
were still alive in the jungles of Guam
on 10 August. Except for the doomed
group defending the enemy headquarters
at Mt. Mataguac, there was little
cohesion among the men that survived.
In the months to come, when American
troops in training for combat sharpened
their skills in a perpetual mopping-up action, all Japanese efforts at
counterattacks and guerrilla warfare
floundered in a bitter struggle for survival. Starvation was a constant spectre
to the men hidden in the vast
stretches of jungle, and many of those
that were later captured or killed were
too weak to fight or hide any longer.
For these survivors of the Thirty-first
Army, Guam became a nightmare.

On 8 August, Admiral Nimitz informed
Admiral Spruance of the future
plans for the troops and commanders
involved in the fighting on Guam.
General Geiger and his staff were
needed as soon as the campaign was
ended to take charge of the landing
force preparations for the operations
pending against the Palau Islands.
General Holland Smith was to be relieved
as Commanding General, Expeditionary
Troops and returned to Pearl
Harbor to assume his duties as Commanding
General, Fleet Marine Force,
Pacific. General Schmidt and his
VAC headquarters were to assume
command of all assault troops remaining
in the Marianas. In discharging
this responsibility, Schmidt was to report
to Admiral Spruance and later
when directed, to the Commander, Forward
Area, Central Pacific, Vice Admiral
John H. Hoover.

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For the time being, the assault troops
of IIIAC were to remain on Guam, but
the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade
was to depart soon for Guadalcanal,
where it would join the 29th Marines
and other reinforcing units to become
the 6th Marine Division. Corps troops
were scheduled to load out for training
and staging areas in the South Pacific
as shipping became available. The
77th Infantry Division, now blooded in
combat and veteran in outlook, was to
reorganize and refit as quickly as possible
at Guam and prepare for early
employment in another operation.
Only the 3d Marine Division was due
to remain for an extended period on the
island it helped capture, but this unit,
too, would be in battle again before
seven months went by.

At 1030 on 10 August, shortly after
the 2d Battalion, 3d Marines had accounted
for the Japanese armor near
Tarague, the Indianapolis arrived at
Guam and dropped anchor in Apra
Harbor. In the afternoon at 1635, Admiral
Nimitz and his party, including
the Commandant of the Marine Corps,
Lieutenant General Alexander A. Vandegrift,
landed at Orote airfield and
immediately boarded the Fifth Fleet
flagship for the first of a series of conferences
among senior officers concerning
future operations in the Pacific.
On the 11th, Nimitz and Vandegrift
inspected combat troops and supply
installations, and before returning to
Pearl, conferred with General Larsen
regarding base development plans for
the island.

Most of the ships that had taken part
in FORAGER had already departed by
the time Guam was declared secure.
At noon on the 10th, Admiral Conolly
turned over his responsibilities as CTF
53 and Senior Officer Present Afloat
(SOPA) to Admiral Reifsnider. Conolly
then flew to Pearl Harbor with key
staff members to begin again the intricate
task of planning an amphibious
operation. Ten days later, Reifsnider
in turn relinquished SOPA duties to a
deputy of Admiral Hoover and sailed
in the George Clymer for Hawaii. On
his departure, Task Force 53 was dissolved.

General Geiger and his staff flew to
Guadalcanal early on 12 August, turning
temporary command of STLF over
to General Turnage. On the same day,
General Schmidt, at sea en route to
Guam, reported by dispatch to assume
command of all assault troops on the
island. The VAC CP opened near
Agana at 1430 on the 13th.

On 15 August, Admiral Nimitz' defense
and development plan for the
Central Pacific became effective at
Guam. Admiral Turner's Joint Expeditionary
Force was dissolved, and
Admiral Hoover was assigned responsibility
for operations at Guam as he
had been for Saipan and Tinian on the
12th. On the 15th, as part of the
change over, General Larsen assumed
his duties as island commander.

One more step remained to be taken
before the campaign for the capture of
the southern Marianas became a matter
of history. On 26 August, Admiral
Spruance was relieved of responsibility
for the Forward Area, Central Pacific
and all forces under his command by
Admiral William F. Halsey. For a
time, Halsey's Third Fleet, using most
of the ships and many of the men that
had fought under Spruance, would
carry on fleet operations against Japan.

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As Halsey characterized the change:
"Instead of using the stagecoach system
of keeping the drivers and changing
the horses, we changed the drivers
and kept the horses. It was hard on
the horses, but it was effective."4
Spruance
and his veteran staff and senior
commanders would resume direction of
the planning and preparations for the
major amphibious campaigns aimed at
the inner circle of Japanese defenses.

As the assault phase on Guam drew
to a close, General Larsen assumed increasing
responsibility for operations
on the island. On 2 August, control of
Orote Peninsula and Cabras Island
passed to Island Command, and on the
7th, Larsen took over the operation of
all extended radio circuits and a joint
communications center. Supervision
of all unloading activities was assigned
to Island Command on 9 August. As
garrison shipping arrived, the number
and complexity of troops reporting
to the island commander increased
steadily.

General Larsen's initial task organization
for base development included
an advance naval base force, Lion 6,
which was hard at work developing
Apra Harbor as the center of a vast
naval operating base. Airfield and
road construction and stevedoring duties
were the principal assignments of
elements of the 5th Naval Construction
Brigade, which included 12 Seabee battalions
and 1 Marine and 4 Army battalions
of aviation engineers. Supply
activities were concentrated in the
dumps and salvage and repair facilities
developed and manned by the 5th Field
Depot. For air defense, Larsen had
MAG-21 and four antiaircraft battalions.
V Amphibious Corps assigned
him the 3d Marine Division for ground
defense.

To this myriad of responsibilities
for building Guam into a major staging,
supply, and training base for
future Pacific operations, General Larsen
added the mantle of de facto governor
of the Guamanians. The civil affairs
section of Island Command had
approximately 21,000 men, women, and
children to care for, and to start back
on the road to self-sufficiency. The
cultivation of native gardens and the
revival of native industries were actively
fostered, and hundreds of men
and women were employed as laborers
and clerical workers in the burgeoning
port, airfield, and supply facilities.

To protect and supervise the Guamanians,
Admiral Nimitz authorized the
formation of an island police, successor
to the prewar Insular Patrol Force.
Formed from a nucleus of former members
plus military policemen from Island
Command, all under a Marine
officer, the new Local Security Patrol
Force performed normal civilian police
functions. In addition, however, these
men, and many other Guamanians who
volunteered as guides to American patrols,
took an active part in hunting the
Japanese. Isolated native villages and

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farms were particularly vulnerable to
foraging raids by the harried enemy
troops, who were trying to keep alive
in the jungle.

Soon after assuming responsibility
for the assault troops on Guam, General
Schmidt directed that the 3d and 77th
Divisions each maintain an infantry
regiment and an artillery battalion in
the northern part of the island with a
mission of killing or capturing the remaining
Japanese. The 21st Marines
and the 306th Infantry, which drew the
initial patrol assignments, accounted
for an average of 80 enemy a day between
them in the last two weeks of
August. On the 22d, the 3d Division
passed to Island Command control for
garrison duty and took over sole responsibility
for the conduct of mopping-up
operations; the 306th Infantry was relieved
on 26 August to return to the
77th Division base camp.

While the patrol operations continued
without letup, the majority of the
assault troops under VAC command
either shipped out from the island or
settled into a rehabilitation and training
routine with the emphasis on
readying the men for early employment
in combat again. The III Corps Headquarters
and Service Battalion and the
Signal Battalion left for Guadalcanal
on 15 August. On the 21st, elements
of the 1st Brigade began loading ship,
and the veteran troops destined to form
the new 6th Division sailed for the
South Pacific on the 31st. In areas
assigned by Island Command, the 3d
Marine Division established its unit
camps along the east coast road between
Pago Bay and Ylig Bay, and the
77th Division encamped in the hills
above Agat along Harmon Road.

The preparations of the 3d and 77th
Divisions for further combat highlighted
the role that Guam was to play
during the remainder of the war. In
addition to its development as a major
troop training area, the island was
transformed into a vast supply depot
and a major naval base, and was eventually
the site of Admiral Nimitz' advance
fleet headquarters. On the plateau
of northern Guam, where the
final pitched battles had been fought,
two huge airfields and a sprawling air
depot were wrested from the jungle to
house and service B-29s of the Twentieth
Air Force, which struck repeatedly
at Japan. A little over a year
after the date that General Geiger had
declared the island secure, it housed
201,718 American troops: 65,095 Army
and Army Air Forces; 77,911 Navy;
and 58,712 Marine Corps. Reunited
on Guam for operations against the
Japanese home islands were the 3d and
6th Marine Divisions, the former returned
from the fighting on Iwo Jima
and the latter from the battle for
Okinawa.

During the period when the American
forces on Guam were settling into
a bustling routine of preparation for
future operations, the situation of the
Japanese hold-outs steadily deteriorated.
Many of the men that hid out
in the jungle were weaponless, few of
those that were armed had much ammunition,
and virtually none that had
the means to fight showed any disposition
to engage the Marine patrols.
The overwhelming obsession of the enemy
troops was food, and starvation
forced many of them to risk their lives
in attempts to steal rations. Gradually,
as the months wore on, two

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officers among the survivors, Lieutenant
Colonel Takeda and Major Sato,
were able to establish a semblance of
organization, but for the most part, the
Japanese that lived did so as individuals
and small groups, fending for
themselves and avoiding all contact
with the Americans.

In the latter stages of the war, psychological
warfare teams of Island
Command were increasingly successful
in overcoming the Japanese reluctance
to surrender. On 11 June 1945, Major
Sato, convinced of the futility of holding
out any longer, turned himself in
and brought with him 34 men. By the
end of August, records showed that
18,377 dead had been counted since
W-Day and that 1,250 men had surrendered.
After the Emperor had ordered
all his troops to lay down their
arms, the Americans were successful in
convincing Lieutenant Colonel Takeda
that he should come in. On 4 September,
Takeda marched out of the jungle
near Tarague, bringing with him 67
men. A week later he was able to persuade
another group of 46 men to surrender,
the last unified element of the
garrison that had defended Guam.
Individual Japanese continued to hide
out in the jungle for years after the
war was over, despite repeated efforts
to convince them that Japan had surrendered.

The operations leading to the recapture
of Guam, as an integral part of the
overall Marianas campaign, suffered
and profited as did those at Saipan and
Tinian from the state of progress in
amphibious warfare when FORAGER
was launched. In one respect,
the extent of the prelanding naval bombardment,
a standard was set that was
never again reached during the war.
In the Palaus and the Philippines, at
Iwo Jima and Okinawa, gunfire support
ships never again had the opportunity
for prolonged, systematic fire that Admiral
Conolly exploited so successfully.7
The destruction of Japanese positions
led the IIIAC naval gunfire officer to
observe:

The extended period for bombardment
plus a system for keeping target damage
reports accounted for practically every
known Japanese gun that could seriously
endanger our landings. When the morning
of the landing arrived, it was known
that the assault troops would meet little
resistance [from enemy artillery or naval
guns.]8

Although a few coast defense artillery
pieces and antiboat guns did manage
to weather this shelling and the
accompanying carrier air strikes, most
were knocked out as soon as they revealed
themselves. The devastation
wrought among the 1st Brigade assault
waves by one undetected 75mm gun at
Gaan Point illustrated the probable

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result of a less comprehensive target destruction
plan. Where the enemy guns
had not been destroyed, as was the case
with a pair of 6-inch naval guns in the
3d Division landing zone, the murderous
effect of area neutralization fires
prompted crews to abandon their exposed
emplacements.

The 1st Brigade, in its comments on
naval gunfire, summed up the case for
the assault troops--the more preparation,
the better. General Shepherd
recommended:

. . . in future operations the amount
of naval gunfire placed on a well-defended
beach upon which troops are to
be landed be no less than that fired in
the Agat area of Guam. If possible, a
greater amount of ammunition should
be fired. The same amount of ammunition
fired over a longer period of time seems
to be more effective than that amount
fired in a short period.9

Once the III Corps had landed, the
use of naval fire support was continuous
and generally effective. In particular,
every assault unit was high in
praise of the system of providing frontline
battalions a ship to fire and illuminate
throughout the night. Star shells
were as popular with American combat
troops as they were hated by the Japanese.
Marine ground commanders
were impressed with the need for a
greater supply of illumination ammunition;
General Turnage asked that
"more stars be made available for future
operation,"10
and General Shepherd
stated that it would be necessary
to have "at least ten times the number
of star shells in a future operation covering the same period of time as was
allowed for the Guam operation."11

Carrier aircraft were equal partners
with gunfire support ships in the pre-landing
bombardment; they shared with
land-based planes flying from Saipan
the deep support missions delivered for
the troops once ashore. During the operation,
IIIAC noted that at least 6,432
sorties were flown, with 3,316 strafing
runs made and 2,410 tons of bombs
dropped. The scout, torpedo, and
fighter bombers were most effective
against targets that could not be
reached by the flat trajectory fire of
naval guns, such as the defiladed areas
of Fonte Plateau from which Japanese
artillery and mortars fired on the
beaches and where enemy troops assembled
for counterattacks. When the target
area was close to the front line,
opinions on the effectiveness of air support
were varied and frequently critical.
Admiral Turner characterized
close air support at Guam as "not very
good."12

General Shepherd noted that because
most vehicular radios, the only ones
capable of operating on the Support Air
Direction (SAD) net, were damaged by
salt water, the brigade air liaison parties
directed relatively few air strikes.
Those that did take place were kept beyond
a bomb safety line, 1,000 yards
from the Marine front lines, because of
"rather severe casualties to our troops
from bombing by our supporting

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aircraft."13
The 77th Division had only
one air strike directed by its air liaison
parties, but the 3d Division made frequent
use of ground-controlled strikes
within 500 yards or less of its assault
troops. On four occasions division
troops were the target of misdirected
bombing and strafing, and General
Turnage recommended more accurate
briefing of pilots to prevent repetition
of such incidents.

The most crucial area of air support
operations was communications. The
SAD net was crowded at all times, and
General Turnage observed that very
few close support strikes were carried
out on time or within limits set by requesting
agencies. The method of operation
worked out by Commander,
Support Aircraft of TF 53 called for all
requests from battalion air liaison to
clear through regiments. He also frequently
checked with divisions "since
frontline reports from battalions were
not sufficient to establish the whole
front line near the target area."14
Once the air liaison officer had shifted
to the SAD frequency, he adjusted the
dummy runs made by the flight leader
or air coordinator until the plane was
on target. Then a single bomb was
dropped and if it was accurate, the entire
flight would follow and attack.
The time consumed in request, processing,
approval, and final execution was
generally 45 minutes to an hour or
more. Although the Commander, Support
Aircraft considered the time spent
justified by the success of the missions,
ground units generally asked for more
immediate control of planes by air liaison
officers and for a method of operations
and system of communications
that would ensure a faster response to
the needs of assault troops. In this
conclusion, that air liaison parties
should have more direct contact with
supporting planes, the infantrymen got
firm backing from the Commander,
Support Aircraft, Pacific Fleet, in his
comments on air operations in the Marianas.15
He also pointed out there was
a need for greater understanding "on
the one hand by the Ground Forces of
the capabilities and limitations of aircraft,
and on the other hand by the pilots
of what they are supposed to
accomplish."16
There was undoubtedly
generous room for improvement in air
support techniques, and this need was
sorely felt, because when planes were
properly used they proved themselves
invaluable in close support.

To General Geiger and many other
Marines, a partial solution to air support
problems lay in increased use of
Marine aviation. The IIIAC air officer
pointed out that Marine bombing
squadrons had clearly demonstrated
their capability in providing close (100
to 500 yards) support to ground troops
(notably at Bougainville while working
with the 3d Marine Division). He
commented "that troop commanders,
whether justifiably so or not, have repeatedly
expressed a desire that Marine
Bombing Squadrons be used for close
support of their troops."17
In reinforcing
this finding with a recommendation

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that specially trained Marine air support
groups be placed on CVEs, the
Expeditionary Troops air officer concluded:

The troop experience of senior Marine
pilots combined with the indoctrination of
new pilots in infantry tactics should insure
greater cooperation and coordination
between air and ground units.18

In assessing the operations of another
supporting weapon, armor working directly
with the infantry, both the 3d
Division and the 1st Brigade were unanimous
in praising the medium tank as
the most effective weapon for destroying
enemy emplacements. Point-blank
fire by the 75mm guns collapsed embrasures,
cave defenses, and bunkers
even after enemy fire drove supporting
infantry to cover. The 3d Tank Battalion,
which employed flamethrower
tanks for the first time, was well satisfied
with the new weapon, but found
that attempts to mount infantry flamethrowers
on tanks were generally
unsatisfactory. The 3d Division recommended
that in the future one tank
of each platoon be equipped to spew
flame. Although the brigade had no
flame tanks, it did successfully employ
borrowed Army tank destroyers armed
with a 3-inch gun which showed great
penetrating power in attacking cave
positions. Operations in northern
Guam demonstrated that armor and
dozer blades were an effective combination
against the jungle. The Marines
frequently employed tanks working in
conjunction with bulldozers in breaking
trails; the 77th Division found that a
dozer with an armored cab was the
most effective vehicle for penetrating
the heavy brush.

In general, infantry weapons proved
reliable despite the weather and prolonged
rough usage in the clutching
jungle, but flamethrowers were easily
damaged, with the firing mechanism a
particularly sore spot. General Shepherd
recommended that sufficient replacement
flamethrowers be carried to
the target to maintain initial allowances.

During the Guam operation, 3d Division
and 1st Brigade experiments with
the use of war dogs produced varied results.
The dogs proved effective on
night security watch and generally reliable
on patrol, although they failed to
alert Marines to hidden enemy troops
on several occasions. Little need was
found for the messenger dogs, for the
SCR-300 radio provided reliable communications
for isolated units. Patrols
of the 3d Division found a new use for
the dogs, though--investigating caves
for hidden enemy before Marines entered;
this technique proved best suited
to the more vicious and aggressive animals.

Marine infantry battalions on Guam
operated under a new table of organization,
one that included in each rifle
company the machine guns and mortars
that had formerly been part of separate
battalion weapons companies. The
change worked well, gave closer support
to the riflemen when needed, provided
both company and battalion commanders
with better control of supporting
weapons, and simplified frontline supply
channels. Since machine guns
were prime targets for enemy fire, casualties
among the crews were heavy,
but replacements were found more

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easily among rifle company personnel.
The other important change in infantry
organization, the 13-man rifle squad
with its three 4-man fire teams, proved
to be a harder-hitting and more flexible
fighting unit than its 11-man predecessor.

Brigade and division artillery, closely
trained with the troops they supported,
were an integral part of a tank-infantry-artillery team. Most ground commanders
echoed General Shepherd's
comment that "artillery was the most
effective weapon employed during the
operation."19
Firing batteries quickly
landed, promptly registered, and thundered
into action early on W-Day.
Whenever the front lines advanced appreciably,
the artillery followed. The
12th Marines displaced five times between
1-10 August, the 77th Division
artillery battalions made four moves to
remain in direct support, and in northern
Guam, one of the 75mm battalions
of the brigade moved forward five times
and the other four. In all displacements,
artillery units were handicapped
by the 50 percent reduction in motor
transport imposed by reduced shipping
space; vehicles were frequently pooled
to effect rapid movement and keep the
howitzers within supporting distance.

In the initial stages of the assault, the
DUKW proved invaluable to the artillery
units.20
Not only did the amphibian
trucks keep an adequate supply of
ammunition close to the firing batteries,
they also provided a satisfactory means
of getting the 105mm howitzers ashore
early in the fighting. Prior to the
FORAGER Operation, the lack of a
suitable vehicle to land the 105s in the
assault had prompted the retention of
the lighter and more maneuverable 75mm in the Marine artillery regiment.
Colonel John B. Wilson, commanding
the 12th Marines, now recommended
that the remaining 75mm pack howitzer
units be replaced by 105mm battalions.
This exchange would give the
division more firepower and simplify
ammunition handling and supply.

The key to effective fire support was
rapid and efficient communications between
forward observers and fire direction
centers. Radios were used when
necessary, but wire was employed to
carry most of the traffic. The 12th
Marines found the use of a forward
switching central to be "extremely advantageous."21
Artillery liaison party
wire teams were required to maintain
lines back only to a switching central
in the vicinity of an infantry regimental
CP; from there artillery battalion
wiremen took care of the trunks to the
fire direction center (FDC).

Centralized fire coordination was a
feature of the Guam operation. The

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corps air and naval gunfire officers
worked closely with the Corps Artillery
FDC. Once his CP was functioning
ashore, the Corps Artillery commander,
General del Valle, was assigned operational
control of all artillery on the island.
This system enabled him to mass
fires quickly and assign reinforcing
missions as the situation required. In
addition, he was able, in the light of
the overall campaign picture, to make
effective assignment of ammunition priorities,
transportation, and firing positions.

General del Valle was not satisfied
with the procedures used to get his own
corps units ashore. He reported that
his battalions were "prevented from
entering the action ashore at an early
stage with sufficient ammunition and
suitable communications to render the
desired support to the attack of the
Corps during its critical stages."22
In
particular, he noted that the unloading
was out of his control and at variance
with the planned scheme of unloading
and entry into action. He wrote that
"as long as this control is vested in other
officers, not especially concerned with,
nor interested in, the operations of
Corps [Artillery] satisfactory results
will not be achieved."23

Ammunition supply was a particularly
pressing problem in the first days
of the operation when the heavy 155mm
shells and powder began to come ashore
in large quantities. Shore parties
were hard put to handle the multiple
transfers from boat to amphibian, vehicle
to truck, and truck to dump.
Large working parties of artillerymen
were needed to handle their own ammunition
on the beaches and in dumps
ashore. The general recommended
that an ammunition company and a
DUKW company be assigned to Corps
Artillery in the future to move ammunition
directly from ship to battalion
and battery dumps ashore.

Since no Japanese aircraft visited
the air space over Guam, the antiaircraft
batteries of Corps Artillery were
not used in their primary function.
The versatility of the guns and the destruction
wrought by their firepower
was clearly demonstrated, however, by
their frequent use in support of ground
troops. General del Valle drew particular
attention to the employment of the
9th Defense Battalion in perimeter defense
and in the patrolling in southern
Guam as an illustration of the range of
usefulness of antiaircraft units.

Many problems in landing troops and
supplies at Guam were anticipated;
others, as they occurred, were solved by
combat team, brigade, division, and
Corps Service Group shore parties.
The effort to keep the assault troops
supplied adequately required thousands
of men, a force greater in strength than
the 1st Brigade. The 3d Division had
ship unloading details of approximately
1,200 men and shore working parties
that numbered 3,300; the 1st Brigade
left 1,070 men on board ship and used
1,800 on beach and reef; and the 77th
Division, employing three battalions of
shore party engineers plus some 270
garrison troops with low landing priorities,
had 583 soldiers unloading ships
and 1,828 working ashore. Almost
one-fifth of the total strength of IIIAC

In allotting troops for the shore parties,
General Geiger assigned the brigade
assault forces a replacement unit.
This organization, the 1st Provisional
Replacement Company (11 officers, 383
enlisted men) was employed as shore
party labor when the need was greatest.
After the first flood of supplies was
manhandled ashore, a fast-paced but
orderly routine was established to unload
assault and resupply shipping.
The manpower requirements of the
shore parties lessened, and the replacements
were then fed into combat units
as required. This use of replacements
proved a sound concept, for it cut
demands on assault troops for shore
party labor and provided a ready source
of trained men to fill the gaps caused
by casualties. In later Marine operations
in the Pacific, replacement battalions
moved to the target with the
assault echelon for use both as part of
the shore party and as fillers in combat
units.

Once the round-the-clock labor of the
first 48 hours of unloading ended, the
major portion of the task of handling
supplies from ship to beach dumps fell
to the specialists, the Army shore party
engineers and the Marine pioneers. The
Marine units proved adept at improvisation
and in making-do with what they
had plus what they could borrow,
but they needed more heavy equipment.
Corps reported that the pioneers:

. . . are grossly ill-equipped when there
are any beach difficulties or obstacles to
overcome. The organizations attached to
Corps for this operation had insufficient
equipment for reef transfer of cargo,
clearing beaches, and building access
roads thereto. Even though an additional
25 Trackson cranes were provided, these
were insufficient for reef transfer, beach,
and dumps. A large number of lifts were
beyond the capacity of any cranes belonging
to the organizations mentioned.
Some organizations totally lacked lighting
equipment, others had antiquated equipment
with run-down batteries which
could not be used when beach operations
were put on a 24-hour basis. Fortunately,
Army Shore Party Battalions had sufficient
equipment to meet minimum requirements
for all Corps beaches.25

A good part of the construction work
that was necessary to maintain and improve
the beach areas and dumps fell to
the Seabees, who operated as part of
the shore parties in both beachheads.
Division and brigade engineers were
primarily concerned with direct support
of the combat teams. Road and
trail construction in forward areas,
mine clearance, demolitions of obstacles
and enemy defenses, and the operation
of water points were all part of combat
engineering tasks.

One responsibility shared by Seabees,
engineers, and pioneers was the maintenance
of an adequate network of
roads. Under the impact of heavy
traffic, the existing roads disintegrated.
There was a constant struggle to repair
the main arteries and to build new
roads required by combat operations.
The restriction on cargo space had hit
the engineer units as hard as any

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organizations on the island, for much
needed equipment had been left behind
in the Solomon and Hawaiian Islands.
Even when Corps Artillery prime movers
equipped with angle dozer blades
were borrowed, there were insufficient
bulldozers and roadgraders to handle
the tremendous road-building task.
Frequent rains complicated all road operations,
for mud prevented coral surfacing
from binding and drainage problems
caused an epidemic of floods.

Provident but temporary help was
provided in this situation by the garrison
force Seabee and engineer battalions,
whose main mission was airfield
construction. The profusion of difficulties
faced by equipment-short assault
units prompted the corps engineer to
recommend that in future operations:

. . . a minimum of one engineer battalion
with heavy grading equipment (a
Naval Construction Battalion, a Marine
Separate Engineer Battalion, or an Army
Aviation Engineer Battalion) be included
in the assault echelon of each Marine or
Army division, or fraction thereof, in the
assault forces.26

The limitations posed by the lack of
good roads and the chronic shortage of
transportation hampered supply operations
to some extent. Nowhere, however,
was the course of combat endangered
by this situation. When assault
troops started moving north, units attempted
to maintain a 5-day level of
stocks in forward supply dumps, but
there were never enough trucks available
to meet this goal. The 5th Field
Depot was able to supply all units and
build up reserve stocks to 20-day levels
in most categories. The necessity of
feeding thousands of natives ate into
the resupply rations, however, and the
depot was never able to attain much
more than a 10-day level of reserve
food. Considered as a whole, logistics
problems were competently handled and
"the supply system on Guam worked
smoothly and efficiently."27

One of the most heartening aspects of
the operation, as indeed it was of other
American assault landings, was the effectiveness
of the medical treatment of
casualties. If a man was hit, he knew
that a Navy corpsman or an Army aidman
would be at his side as soon as
possible. Whatever the difficulties,
evacuation was prompt; in the assault
phase, the system of routing casualties
from forward aid stations through
beach and shore party medical sections
to ships offshore brought wounded men
on board specially equipped LSTs and
APAs within an hour after the first
wave landed.28
Once field hospitals
were set up ashore, many of the less
seriously sick and wounded were
treated on the island, but there was a
steady flow of casualties via ship to
base hospitals. Transports with specially
augmented medical staffs and facilities
for casualty care evacuated
2,552 men from Guam, and the hospital
ships Solace and Bountiful carried
1,632 more.

The risks taken by the corpsmen, aidmen,
and doctors in their concern for
the wounded were great. The frequent

--579--

flurries of activity around aid stations,
which were usually located on the natural
routes of approach to the front lines,
often drew Japanese mortar and artillery
fire. Enemy small arms fire often
seemed to be centered on the men that
were trying to save the lives of assault
troop casualties. In the course of the
Guam campaign, the 3d Division had 3
medical officers and 27 corpsmen killed
in action and 12 officers and 118 corpsmen
wounded; the 1st Brigade had 1
officer and 9 corpsmen killed and 1 officer
and 35 corpsmen wounded. The
77th Division lost 10 medical aidmen
killed and had 35 wounded in action.

An analysis of the lessons learned
by Americans at Guam seems incomplete
without the viewpoint of the Japanese
on their own operations. A
postwar study of their role concludes
with the judgement:

. . . that Japanese troops on Guam
took charge of the most extensive front
as a division under the absolute command
of sea and air by the enemy and checked
the enemy from securing beachheads by
organized resistance in the coastal area
for the longest period, in spite of heavy
enemy bombing and shelling for the
longest time. In view of this, it is no exaggeration
to say that this result was
the best in the history of the war.29

A further comment based on this
study by a present-day Japanese general,
writing in an article authored
jointly with a Marine veteran of the
Guam operation, points out a principle
by which the defense might have been
even more effective:

With no attempt to distract from the
ability of the Japanese commanders, they
were forced by Imperial General Headquarters
policy to 'defeat-the-enemy-on-the-beach,' and accepted battle on two
widely separated, and not mutually supporting,
fronts. Their fighting strength
was sapped by Col Suenaga's, and subsequent,
counterattacks. These attacks,
launched piecemeal, could only be indecisive.
If Gen Takashina had defended
the vital area of Guam, Apra Harbor, he
would have seriously delayed subsequent
U. S. operations. By so doing he could
have delayed the devastating B-29 raids
on his homeland. Instead he located his
forces behind the landing areas and thus
violated the cardinal rule of island defense--defend the vital area.30

Central Pacific Proving
Ground

In a little more than nine months,
November 1943 to August 1944, the art
and science of amphibious warfare
made enormous progress. The knowledge
gained had been dearly won by the
thousands of Americans killed and the
many wounded between D-Day at
Tarawa and the end of organized resistance
at Guam. Each step of the way
revealed weaknesses which required
correction and problems which required
answers. This crucial period of the
war was a time when the officers and
men of the Pacific Fleet and the Pacific
Ocean Areas discovered--by trial and
error--the most effective means of
wresting a stubbornly-defended island
from enemy hands.

Tarawa was the primer, and from
the analytical reports of the commanders
there and from their critical

--580--

CORSAIRS OF MAG-21 taxi down the airstrip of Orote Peninsula, 10 days after the island was secured. (USMC 92396)

B-29s returning from a strike on Japan approach North Field, which was wrested from the jungle battleground of northern Guam. (USAF 59056AC)

--581--

evaluation of what went wrong, of what
needed improvement, and of what techniques
and equipment proved out in
combat, came a tremendous outpouring
of lessons learned. The development of
the LVT(A) was expedited to provide
close-in fire support for assault waves,
and the value of the LVT was emphasized
and its role expanded in future
operations. Deficiencies in naval gunfire
and aerial bombardment were pinpointed,
and measures were taken to
improve the delivery and effectiveness
of both prelanding bombardment and
fire support once the assault troops were
ashore. The shortcomings of communications
between ship and shore
and air and ground drew particular attention,
and the training and equipment
of air and naval gunfire liaison
teams was improved and intensified.

The performance of the fast carrier
task forces in the Gilberts campaign
clearly demonstrated that Americans
had the power to isolate a target area,
protect the amphibious forces, and permit
a longer and more thorough softening-up of the objective. The carriers
provided the means to keep the enemy
off-balance, and with the voracious submarines
that ranged the Japanese shipping
lanes, choked off reinforcements
and defensive supplies. From Tarawa
onward, as one Japanese admiral said:
"Everywhere, I think, you attacked before
the defense was ready. You came
more quickly than we expected."31

The carrier attack on Truk convinced
the enemy that its vaunted naval base
was vulnerable and therefore useless,
and the fact that Truk was of no value
to the Japanese meant "that its seizure
was abandoned as a U. S. objective."32
The momentum generated by the drive
into the Marshalls at Kwajalein and the
quickly planned and executed capture
of Eniwetok was rewarding. The time
of the attack on the Marianas was advanced
by months. The swiftly rising
power of Admiral Nimitz' forces, born
as much of experience as of new
strength, gave meaning to the principle
formulated by the foremost naval historian of the war, Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, who stated that "the
closer that one offensive steps on another's
heels, the greater will be the
enemy's loss and confusion, and the less
one's own."33

Problems of coordination and control
in the ship-to-shore movement and
in operations ashore cropped up in the
Marshalls as they had in the Gilberts,
but the difficulties had less effect and
pointed the way to better solutions.
Naval gunfire was measurably more effective,
artillery was used to good account
from offshore islands at most
objectives, and prelanding aerial
strikes were better briefed and executed.
Air support techniques and
communications procedures remained
a worrisome trouble spot in need of improvement.
As the LVT had starred at
Tarawa, the DUKW shone at Kwajalein,
where its performance marked the
growth of a family of amphibious vehicles
which eased the problems posed by
Pacific reefs.

A floating service squadron based in
the Marshalls, which could replenish

--582--

and repair fleet units, vastly extended
the range and duration of fast carrier
operations and justified the decision
to expedite the decisive thrust into
the Marianas. Amphibious planners,
sparked by Admirals Spruance and
Turner, merged assault and base development
plans into a unified whole which
ensured a continued rapid advance to
the ultimate objective, Japan. The
spring and summer of 1944 saw the
flowering of a vital skill, logistics planning,
whose incredible complexity met
the need to sustain massive assaults and
at the same time provided a continuous
flow of men, supplies, and equipment
for a host of existing and future requirements.

The attack on Saipan and the following
operations at Tinian and Guam
demonstrated the ability of a Marine
headquarters to operate above corps
level and to prosecute successfully a
variety of land campaigns on objectives
larger than the fortress atolls. Admiral
Spruance's plan, like all Fifth Fleet
operations plans in amphibious campaigns,
provided for action to be taken
in case of attack by a major enemy
naval force.34
This foresight was in
good part responsible for the favorable
result of the Battle of the Philippine
Sea, which Admiral King noted:

. . . crippled Japanese naval aviation
for the remainder of the war. Planes
could be replaced, pilots could not, and,
as was discovered later in the year at the
Battle for Leyte Gulf, the Japanese no
longer had the trained and seasoned aviators
that were necessary for successful
operations against our fleet.35

The fact that the attack on Saipan
lured the Japanese carriers to defeat
might alone be enough to call it the decisive
operation of the Central Pacific
campaign. The capture of the island,
however, meant far more. It toppled
the war party government of Premier
Tojo in Japan, ensured the success of
operations against Tinian and Guam,
and secured the prime objective--the
very long range bomber fields from
which B-29s could ravage Japan.

A new pattern of Japanese defense,
made possible by room to maneuver,
emerged on Saipan. After beach positions
fell, the enemy withdrew fighting
to final defenses with the sole aim of
making the battle as costly as possible
to the Americans. The losses suffered
by VAC were heavy but unavoidable
against a determined foe. When the
turn of Tinian came, every effort was
bent towards improving the fire support
from air and naval gunfire
to limit American casualties. Artillery
pounded the smaller island for days,
and, under the cover of intensive supporting
fires, a masterful shore-to-shore
assault hit the Japanese defenses from
an unexpected front. The result was a
quick ending to a battle that might well
have claimed the lives of many more
Marines than those that did fall.

Intelligence gained at Saipan of the
strength and probable defensive tactics
of the 29th Division on Guam was instrumental
in lengthening and increasing

--583--

the effectiveness of preliminary air
and naval gunfire bombardment against
the largest of the three Marianas target
islands. Contemporary Japanese testimony
amply supports the conclusion
that this fire severely disrupted defensive
preparations. Although the dual
landings and subsequent operations in
the rugged terrain ashore posed difficult
problems of coordination and control,
IIIAC units readily adapted their tactics
to meet the enemy defense. The
seizure of this island gave the Navy a
base that by the end of the war was
capable of supporting one-third of the
Pacific fleet and provided the Army Air
Forces additional B-29 bases for the
aerial campaign against Japan.

In the Marianas as well as in the Gilberts
and Marshalls, one aspect of the
operations remained unsatisfactory--air support of ground troops. The
complex and crowded communications
setup caused multiple problems, inadequate
pilot briefing led to inaccuracy,
and, most important from the point of
view of ground commanders, slow response
to strike requests made air a far
less effective supporting weapon than it
might have been. The recognition of
the need for improvement was not confined
to the men that were supported,
for a veteran Navy bombing squadron
commander reported to CinCPac:

In the Guam and Saipan operations,
close support was actually almost nonexistent.
Beyond tactical support by
bombing before the troops landed, and
some strategical bombing of rear areas
and communications during the battles,
little help was actually given the troops
on the front lines. It is believed that the
entire system must be changed and
streamlined to make possible the real
Close Support that we are capable of
giving the troops.36

Marine commanders pressed hard for
increased use of Marine air in close
support. They wanted pilots, planes,
and a control system oriented to ground
needs and quickly responsive to strike
requests. The winds of change were in
the air in the summer of 1944 and refinements
in close support techniques
were coming, Operations later in the
year saw planes bombing and strafing
closer to frontline positions and evidenced
a steady increase in the employment
of Marine squadrons in this task
as well as in air-to-air operations. Admiral
Nimitz, in his comments on operations
in the Marianas, noted:

Four CVE's have been designated for
close (troop) support and will embark
Marine aircraft squadrons. It is not anticipated
that Marine squadrons will
furnish all close air support but they
will be used with Marine divisions when
the situation permits. In addition a certain
number of Marine aviators are being
assigned to the various amphibious force
flagships to assist in the control of support
aircraft.37

--584--

At the conclusion of the Marianas
campaign, senior commanders were
generally satisfied that their forces
were experts in the techniques of the
amphibious assault and veterans in the
flexibility of response it required. The
admirals and generals were far from
complacent, however, for the operations
ahead promised to be even "more demanding,
bigger in scope, and perhaps
tougher and more costly. In joint operations,
despite occasional and human
friction, forces of the Army, Navy, and
Marine Corps had worked well together
and learned from each other. There
was a will to win that overrode every
disagreement and setback, a pervading
spirit of "let's get on with the job."

In assessing the performance of the
Marines in this period, General Vandegrift,
writing as Commandant to
his predecessor, General Thomas Holcomb,
summarized an inspection trip in
the Pacific, pointing out that he had:

. . . covered 22,000 miles in eighteen
days, saw all the force, corps, and division
commanders and practically all the regimental
and battalion commanders in the
field. I went to Saipan, Tinian, and Guam,
getting to Guam just before the show was
over. Our people did a superb job on all
three of those islands. . . .38

That comment could as well apply to
every man, of whatever service, that
played a part in the success of GALVANIC,
FLINTLOCK, CATCHPOLE,
and FORAGER. Our people did a
superb job.

Footnotes

[1] Army figures are derived from contemporary
unit reports and those for Marine units
from Headquarters Marine Corps postwar
casualty statistics. A detailed unit casualty
breakdown for STLF is contained in Lodge,
The Recapture of Guam, pp. 178-180. Final
official casualty totals for Marine units are
listed in Appendix H.

[7] Admiral Spruance noted, however, that
both bombers and bombardment ships began
hitting Iwo Jima at the time of the attack
on Saipan, a program which was kept up
"whenever we could" until the actual landing
in February 1945. He stated that the time
schedule between Iwo Jima and Okinawa was
too short for an extended bombardment program.
Adm Raymond A. Spruance ltr to
ACofs, G-3, HQMC, dtd 16Jun65.

[34] Admiral Spruance did not expect "the
Japanese fleet would come out to attack us,
primarily because I thought the enemy would
want shore based air support; and I knew
that the first thing we would do in the
Marianas would be to take out all of the
enemy aircraft, and thereafter keep them out."
Spruance 16Jun65 ltr, op. cit.

[36] CO VB-14 ltr to CinCPac, dtd 31 Jul44,
Encl I to CO USS Wasp AR, 6-30Jul44, dtd
31Jul44 (OAB, NHD). In contrast to this
comment, General Shoup, chief of staff of the
2d Marine Division on Saipan, stated on 21
February 1963: "I might say openly that the
finest close air support for ground troops that
I experienced in World War II came from
Navy squadrons at Saipan." 88th Congress,
1st Session, Department of Defense Appropriations
1964, Hearings before a Subcommittee
of the Committee on Appropriations, House of
Representatives (Washington, 1963), pt. 2,
p. 383.

[37] CominCh, The Marianas, p. 2-8. The
operations of Marine squadrons on board
CVEs and fast carriers will be covered in
the fifth volume of this series.